Wesley R. Novotny
Tabor, SD
1934, 2748, Hazelrodt, Tom Berry, Tigerville, F-15,
Wesley R. Novotny, 88, of Phoenix, a retired florist and former mayor of Yankton, S.D., died Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2001, in Phoenix following a short illness.
Services will be 9:30 a.m. Thursday at St. Paul's Catholic Church, Phoenix. Burial will be in National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix. Visitation will be 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, with a vigil service at 7 p.m., at Hansen Mortuary in Phoenix.
Mr. Novotny was born Nov. 13, 1913, in Tabor, S.D., and was a graduate of Tabor High School. He served in the Civilian Conservation Corps in South Dakota's Black Hills and in the U.S. Navy as a radarman on the USS Superior in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He married Elise Mary Mitchell on Sept. 30, 1935, in Parkston, S.D. His wife died on Dec. 18, 1997.
The couple operated Novotny Greenhouses in Yankton for almost 40 years before retiring in 1978 and moving to Phoenix. Mr. Novotny served as president of the South Dakota unit of Florists Transworld Delivery and on the Yankton Parks Commission and the Yankton City Commission. He was mayor of Yankton from 1971 to 1972.
He was a member of Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus, the Moose and Elks lodges, Veterans of Foreign Wars in Yankton, and of St. Paul's Catholic Church in Phoenix. He also was a volunteer for the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Phoenix.
Survivors include his children, Marilyn and Jim Cooley of Yankton, and Wesley "Bud" Novotny Jr., Jean Novotny and William and Mary Novotny, all of Phoenix; 14 grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren; a great-great-grandson; two sisters, Leona Bouska of Yankton, and Edna Ross of Lodi, Calif.; and a brother, Alfred of Tyndall, S.D.
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